U.S. Dependence on Imported Energy to Grow by 2025

A growing U.S. thirst for oil and natural gas will draw increasingly
on foreign imports over the next 20 years, according to the DOE's
Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA's "Annual Energy
Outlook 2005," released on December 9th, says that by 2025, as much as
68 percent of the U.S. petroleum demand could depend on imported oil,
up from 56 percent in 2003. Meanwhile, U.S. natural gas consumption
will increase by 9 trillion cubic feet, a 41 percent increase, of
which 6.4 trillion cubic feet are expected to come from imported
liquefied natural gas (LNG). That will cause LNG imports to increase
16-fold from the 2003 level of 0.4 trillion cubic feet. Meanwhile, the
amount of electricity produced from renewable energy—including
large-scale hydropower and combined heat and power generation—is
projected to grow only 1.4 percent per year, increasing from
359 billion kilowatt-hours in 2003 to 489 billion kilowatt-hours in
2025. See the EIA press release and the early release of the "Annual Energy Outlook 2005."